


They Speak of Liberty and Justice

by sbrn10



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbrn10/pseuds/sbrn10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Assassin's Creed AU. Templars and Assassins and artifacts, oh my.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So... yeah, this one is probably going to be a WIP forever. But hey, AU week. Figured I might as well let this one out into the world instead of letting it die on my hard drive. Think of it as a one-shot? *cough*

Pete's always had an uncanny ability to sense when the shit is about to hit the fan. He calls it vibes—these people call it Eagle Sense.

First of all, that's a stupid name.

Secondly, "I'm Secret Service. This mumbo jumbo is so out of my area it's not even funny."

Artie just looks at him. "Yeah, I'm Secret Service too." The look on Pete's face makes Artie narrow his eyes, but excuse Pete if Artie doesn't really look like Secret Service—starting with the straw hat and the battered coat.

" _You're_ Secret Service?" Artie doesn't respond immediately, and Pete doesn't really wait before continuing, "I mean, forget it; it doesn't matter, but you gotta admit all this spidey-senses and magical Pieces of Eden or whatever talk in _South Dakota_ is _pretty_ sketchy, if you catch my drift." Pete's "oooh scary" hand gestures, pop culture references, and charmingly sarcastic inflections don't seem to have much of their intended effect on Artie.

"It's _Eagle_ Sense."

Seriously. What the fuck.

 

* * *

 

There was the creepy lady who had been waiting for Pete in his apartment but she doesn't show, and there's Artie who seems to be the head honcho around here but not really a great conversationalist, so apparently the only other person here who remotely knows how to talk like a normal person is Myka Bering.

"It's not that bad once you get used to it," Myka says and opens the door to what has been designated Pete's room—not that Pete got any say in the matter. It's a nice room, for what that's worth, soft browns and reds with furniture that speaks of history. Pete thinks about his tiny apartment in D.C., Ikea-white and not nearly enough hot water in the morning. That doesn't make this feel any more right.

"How long does it take to get used to it?"

"A while," Myka concedes with a small smile and awkward shrug. "But once you see the work we're doing here—I mean, we're staring down the boundaries of human capabilities every day. Endless wonder." The warm conviction in her voice makes Pete feel better in spite of everything.

There's still that nag in the pit of his stomach, but when Myka tells Pete to come knocking next door if he needs anything, wishes him good night, and shuts the door behind her so softly he doesn't even hear it, it's hard to imagine this Warehouse deal is as ominous as it might feel.

 

* * *

 

On Pete's second day at the Warehouse, Myka basically tells Pete that the Warehouse has some sort of time machine and they want him to use it.

In real life, this is much less cool than Pete might have imagined.

Pete looks down at the contraption's dull brass rivets and faded leather—distinctly steampunk, and therefore probably either unspeakably old or the product of a really nerdy hobby—and looks back up with extreme misgiving.

"You want me to lie down and put that thing on my head."

There's a helmet with a braid of wires connecting into a shrink's chair, and the chair has another, even thicker braid running out into a computer with one of those bulging CRT screens that Pete hasn't seen in at least ten years. He didn't even know people still make those. Then again, the keyboard was apparently repurposed from a typewriter, and he didn't know people still make _those_ either.

"It's perfectly safe," Myka assures him as she flips a metal switch up, and the machine starts humming—it at least sounds like electricity, not a steam engine. "Trust me, we know from experience."

That means other people have come out of that thing alive. Pete really hopes that's what Myka means.

"It does what again?"

"It's an Animus. It's basically a huge virtual reality machine that lets you tap into your genetic memories." Myka's explanation seems a little absent-minded; her voice punctuated with the loud, fast click-clacking of her typing, although whatever is filling the screen looks like gibberish when Pete squints over her shoulder.

"So... genetic memories as in the memories of my ancestors that are stored in my DNA. Am I saying this right?"

Myka looks up, clearly distracted but smiling. "Yeah, it sounds crazy, I know." She rolls her eyes and waves her hand at the Animus. "I mean, look at that thing. When Artie told me what it was the first time, I told him to go to hell."

Pete laughs in response, although it comes out higher and more nervous than he intended. "Okay, so... at least you came around, right? Right." Pete wipes his sweaty hands off on the butt of his jeans and picks up the helmet to peer at it more closely.

"It'll be just like going to sleep. I'll be here monitoring everything going on in there, and we can still communicate while you're under, so if you're tired or feeling uncomfortable or anything, I can bring you out just like that. I know you have every right to be wary, but you really don't have to be."

Pete takes a deep breath and sits down in the chair, muttering, "Okay. Okay," more to himself than Myka. Myka comes closer and helps him with the helmet, setting it on his head gently and adjusting the metal leads on the inside to rest on his temples. It's only once she tells him he's good to go and smiles at him that he remembers to ask what was bothering him.

"Why me?"

"Because you have the Eagle Sense. It means your ancestors had it too—and they were pretty likely to have been in the thick of some interesting history. It's a great way to learn more about possible artifacts." Myka doesn't look at Pete's eyes as she's saying it, and he knows that's not the whole story, but then Myka tells him to close his eyes and he's out like a light.

 

* * *

 

["Pete? Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, loud and clear. Whoa. What is this place?"

"This is the loading screen. Before we get to any actual memories, I wanted to make sure you're settling in okay. Do you feel like you can move and see normally?"

"All I see is white... stuff. Like digital artifacts, all glowy and stuff. I think I feel all ten fingers and toes though..."

"Good, that's normal. We're good to go. Now I'm going to enter some coordinates and try to get you into a specific memory, all right? Hang tight."]

 

* * *

 

She had never felt this way before—obviously, it's feels so _obvious_ now, since her husband had never touched her like this. He didn't understand like the woman in front of her did. This woman knew that her breasts ached, feverish and begging to be stroked, squeezed, some sort of direct link to where she burned between her thighs –

 

* * *

 

["Holy shit!"

"Um! Wrong DNA cluster. Sorry!"

"Holy _shit_!"

"I am so, so sorry, Pete. Just give me a se –"

" _This_ is what girls feel when they're having sex?"

"Uh..."

"Wait, wait, don't stop just yet, I want to see –"]

 

* * *

 

_London, 1899_

William blinked and stopped in his tracks, swaying precariously. Disorientation washed over him, and he couldn't remember what he had been about to say. His brow furrowed as he looked down at his own hands, then his clothes and shoes.

["This is _not_ as fun as the other memory, Myka."]

"Wooly?" His companion, several steps ahead of him now, turned to him with head cocked in askance. "What's the matter?"

"I –" And then pieces began falling back into place, Helena's gaze bringing him to the present. "I'm sorry, I was just—someone walking over my grave, I suppose." William attempted a smile and adjusted his hat as he trotted forward to catch up.

"Well, come on, we haven't time to dally."

Helena's hands disappeared into her coat pockets as she drew it close around her, setting a brisk pace in the cold night, and William did the same, turning to observe his companion as discreetly as he could. The gas lamps lining the street cast alternating lines of shadow obscuring her face, but the darkness could not hide the beauty in her features or their grim determination.

"As you were saying, Wooly."

Helena's voice startled William out of his thoughts, and he blushed lightly and looked away. "Forgive me for being so scatterbrained, but I –" Then William stopped dead, again, the strangest feeling of his consciousness being ripped out of his body causing him to fall to his knees with no regard for the grime of London's streets. He gasped, trying to fill lungs that seemed to be malfunctioning, and wrung out of his choking throat, "H.G., I – What –"

In alarm, Helena dropped down next to him, her grip on William's shoulders pulling him upright firmly. "Wolcott! What is it?" When William forced his eyes upward, he saw her face so close—so beautiful, but breaking up, distorted and flashing in white, and that was the last thing—

 

* * *

 

Pete's eyes slam open, and he's breathing hard like William was, totally and legitimately freaking out. The way it felt like his whole body was just shutting down, he thinks he's kind of justified.

"What, the fuck, was _that_?" he asks between gulps of air, fingers scrabbling uselessly at the straps of his helmet, and just like that Myka is standing beside him, pushing his hands away and pulling the helmet off his head. She lets it fall, dangling by its wires, and thrusts a towel at him. He doesn't understand why for a moment, but when he runs one hand over his face it comes back slick with sweat.

"Crap, I'm so sorry, Pete. I thought that would be early enough to—"

"You said this thing is safe!" Pete yells, stumbling to his feet and knocking into Myka in the process. The proffered towel falls to the ground, and Pete only avoids stepping on it by chance.

"It is!" Myka sounds frustrated too, and she combs through her curls with one hand, pulling and frowning as she rambles hurriedly. "It's just—you have to start at the right moment. I thought 1899 would be early enough, but you were desynchronizing—and I know that's a really uncomfortable experience but I promise it's not dangerous, just –"

"I was what?"

"It's called desynchronizing. Look, when you're accessing someone else's memories, you can't change them, right? Everything already happened a certain way, and that's the data that's stored in your DNA. But you have some freedom within the Animus because you're still conscious and you're more than a passive observer—you're experiencing the memory as your ancestor. When you do or say things that diverge too much from what your ancestor did, you desynchronize from the actual genetic memory, and the Animus basically freezes and tries to spit you out."

Despite the deep tension underlying Myka's voice as she walks herself through the explanation with hand gestures, it's actually the way Pete can see Myka struggling for control that calms him somehow. Myka's hands are shaking.

"I'm sorry. It was my fault," she says, after a pause.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly in a sigh.

"...you know, I signed up to take bullets for the president, not die in some weird virtual reality, strapped to a crazy chair." Pete stoops and picks the towel up off the floor, flicking it a few times before wiping his face roughly.

"You're not going to die," Myka says automatically.

Pete doesn't want to sit in the chair again, but his legs still feel rubbery so he moves to lean on the table with the computer instead. The monitor has images now, instead of just text, and there's a string of spirals (DNA, he assumes) as well as a corner of the screen showing white static, like that lady's face when it was disintegrating before his eyes.

"Look, I'm really sorry. I should have warned you. I just didn't—it won't happen again. We can work through this." Myka is quiet, her hands motionless now, clasped together tightly in her lap.

Pete looks up and just says, "...one of my ancestors was a gay chick." He means for Myka to laugh but she just stares at him, a distinctly deer-caught-in-headlights look on her face. "My life has gotten way weird."

Myka smiles then, shyly. "That's why I had you pull you out of that one so quick too. If you'd done something to desynchronize in the middle of that..."

Pete's eyes go wide. "...oh, man."


	2. Chapter 2

"Have you ever been in one yourself?" Pete asks, licking ice cream off his spoon sloppily and only half-paying attention to the football game on TV. He's a large child, sprawled across the sofa in a t-shirt and sweats, bare feet propped up on the coffee table, and Myka has to bite back her smile.

"When I first came to the Warehouse. My ancestors weren't really as exciting as yours though, so they didn't keep me in it for long. Just long enough to learn the ropes, understand what's going on in there."

"It's so weird. Like, I have the freedom to move but something in my head is compelling me to move a certain way or say a certain thing. Like is this what mind control feels like? Freaky."

"I know," Myka agrees, curling up her legs beneath her. It's been two weeks since Pete came, and while Myka is glad he seems more comfortable around her and the Warehouse in general, he's also started to ask more questions that Myka isn't sure he wants the answers to yet.

"How long did you say you've been here?"

"About a year. Not that long."

"Have you found a lot of artifacts since then?"

"Some. Some are out in plain sight, like the bloodstone you found. Some are hidden; those are the ones where your genetic memories can help us track them down."

"Do they all turn people into crazy homicidal maniacs?" Myka remembers Pete's report from the museum in D.C.: Aztec bloodstone, scientist turned would-be presidential assassin, Artie saving the day. All pretty normal for the Warehouse, really. "I mean, 'cause if they're all that dangerous, maybe letting them stay hidden is a better idea, you know?"

"But there's no guarantee they'll stay hidden. We lock them up in the Warehouse so they don't accidentally fall into the wrong hands."

Pete shrugs in acceptance and plows right on. "Do you get a lot of people who get vibes like I do? You know, the Eagle Sense or whatever."

Myka shifts awkwardly and reaches for the comforter to hide her fidgeting. "Not a whole lot, but a few."

"Wait, what if they're civilians? I mean, they can't all be Secret Service." Pete says it like it's actually only just occurred to him.

"Well, you'd be surprised how willingly most people volunteer to help with matters of national security." Myka's laugh comes out more stilted than she intended, but thankfully Pete doesn't pursue the question further, distracted by a sudden spike of noise from the TV.

"Aww, come on! I swear, the Browns are even _worse_ this year, and I didn't even think that was statistically possible—"

Myka tries not to seem too relieved (or affectionate) when she smiles.

 

* * *

 

_London, 1891_

William frowned as he looked from the note in his hand to the brass numbers on the door once again. His orders had been incredibly vague, and this dilapidated little shack by the pier was not what he had been expecting when he had been told to go meet an important informant. Nonetheless, orders were orders, and one did not get far in Scotland Yard by ignoring them. He folded up the note and tucked it away in his jacket before knocking smartly.

The door opened abruptly, and William took a startled step back.

"Ah, Mr. Wolcott. We've been expecting you." A man with round spectacles and a fringe of white hair around his ears peered up at him, his smile stretched all across his face. "Come in, come in."

"Um, thank you, Mr –"

"Chaturanga, sir, very pleased to meet you at last." Chaturanga held a gas lantern in hand, the only source of light in an otherwise dark hallway, and though William tried to look past him, wondering what he was being invited into, flickering shadows were all he could make out. Before William could protest, Chaturanga seized his wrist and tugged him along—most improper!—making his way through the small corridor with practiced ease. "You must forgive us this outdated technology, of course," Chaturanga said blithely, the shadows on the wall dancing to his shaking lantern. "Fitting the Warehouse with electric lights has been more difficult than we at first anticipated."

"Electric lights...?"

"Yes, we would be the first in London to outfit such a large space. Rather marvelous, if you think about it, but unfortunately, the sheer size of the Warehouse does seem to stump even the brightest minds of our time—although not for very long, I would imagine –" Chaturanga continued to chatter on, but William lost track when Chaturanga flung open a door and suddenly William was stumbling _downward_. The stairway was uncommonly narrow and steep, and the peculiar stench of the sewers mixed in with the smell of the Thames was unmistakable.

"–smell anything, Mr. Wolcott?"

William belatedly realized Chaturanga had asked him a question only by the silence that followed. "Pardon me, sir?"

"Do you smell anything?" William did not respond with a smart-alecky question referencing the stench, merely _looking_ at Chaturanga instead. Chaturanga shrugged. "Oh well, it is nothing. Merely an idiosyncrasy of mine to ask. No matter, you are still very welcome to Warehouse 12." And with that, Chaturanga pushed open a heavy iron door at the end of the tunnel and pulled William into the light.

 

* * *

 

At a tap on her shoulder, Myka turns to see Artie standing behind her and fumbles with her headset as she pulls it off. "Oh, sorry, Artie, I—"

"How is he settling in?" Artie waves away her concern and just points at Pete.

"Good." Myka nods eagerly and gestures to the monitor. "We found a stable memory to work from. Bit earlier than we'd hoped, but it's a good start. Warehouse 12."

Artie nods brusquely, beard twitching as his lips purse. "And generally?"

It takes a second there for Myka to decipher Artie's laconic question, but she rebounds nicely with, "He just got some boxes from D.C. and put up an entire wall of comic books in his room. So... as much as anybody can settle into the Warehouse on short notice...." Myka smiles wryly. Honestly, Pete is taking to the Warehouse business much better than Myka did—which admittedly isn't a high bar, since no screaming or calling D.C. five times a day is all it takes. Artie's reluctantly amused look is more like a spasm across his mouth and cheeks, but she knows he's thinking the same thing.

Artie pats Myka's shoulder again, and his hand is warm and heavy. It means "Good work," in the way Artie never says, and when he turns to leave, Myka smiles softly at her screen.

 

* * *

 

"How did Napoleon convince the French people to accept an emperor a mere decade after overthrowing a king? How did Henry Tudor, descendant of a bastard, gain the support of the English aristocracy?"

William did not know which stretched the boundaries of credulity more—the woman in front of him or the stories she told. Dressed in a man's trousers and vest, Helena strutted through the Warehouse's shelving aisles as she gestured to the items around them.

"These artifacts have power to sway the minds of men, and we have attempted to study them for decades, but still we know almost nothing of how they work. Imagine what secrets must lie in their making!"

Helena, William was told, was the most junior agent at the Warehouse after him, and Chaturanga had assigned William's introduction to the Warehouse to her care. Even putting aside the details of her dress and carriage, that a woman would be admitted to do the work of Her Majesty's government was surprising in itself, and William ought to have been properly scandalized. Truth be told, he rather was. But there was something fascinating in her too, so that when Helena turned to grin at him he found himself blushing.

"It's all quite exciting, isn't it, Mr. Wolcott? I confess, sometimes I feel a bit of a hack." Helena's eyes flitted back towards the shelves, soft enthusiasm lighting her gaze. "Sometimes I am convinced that half of my stories come from the wonders I see here every day."

Stories? William's brow knit in confusion.

"Now, Mr. Wolcott, you shall hurt my feelings very much if you say you've never read a story by H. G. Wells in the papers."

And then Helena laughed at the look on William's face.

["...wait, H. G. Wells like the author?"

"...yeah?"

"She was a chick?"

"...yeah?"

"You _knew_?"

"Um, Pete, gonna fast forward a little, okay?"]

 

* * *

 

_Chicago, 1893_

["Will you warn me before you do that next time? I'm gonna get, like, Animus whiplash!"

"I did warn you!"

"That wasn't a warning; that was you _informing_ me –"]

"Tesla's ridiculous fantasies will endanger _everybody_ at the Fair. I am telling you, Vincent, our battle rides on you. At least three bids in London will be finalized within the next year, and you must be our vanguard. Tesla and Westinghouse must not be allowed to gain foothold in England."

Edison's voice was clipped, precise, and thrumming with tension as he paced the sitting room restlessly. Despite his greying hair and eyebrows, he radiated great physical energy, and it was clear a formidable mind rested behind his piercing gaze. William could not help but shrink from it as he put down his fork, wishing Helena had accompanied them to dinner instead of gallivanting off to see the Fair.

Vincent Crowley, on the other hand, seemed almost lazy where he sat at the table, a glass of whiskey in one hand and the other dangling behind his chair as he turned to track Edison's movements around the room. "Thomas, you had multiple opportunities to best Westinghouse here in America. You lost the bid for Niagara Falls. You lost the bid for this very Fair. I confess I cannot see what you wish me to do in London, although I appreciate your invitation to come out here—it has been a wonderful vacation so far."

"Our station in Niagara Falls was sabotaged! Destroyed by the Assassins, because the Order failed to protect it adequately!"

["Uh... Did I hear that right? Did Thomas Edison just say 'assassins' destroyed his station?"

"It's... a really long story, Pete."

"Wait, you knew about the assassins _too_? What the fuck, Myka, I thought we were a team –"

"Look, can we just finish the memory? It'll probably make more sense then."

"You are getting so much third degree when I wake up –"]

"It was _your_ right hand man who was assigned the duty," Crowley reminded Edison, who turned an even darker shade of red at the rebuke.

"And he was undermanned."

Crowley sighed, waving his glass dismissively. "Frankly, Thomas, assigning the blame after the fact fails to interest me. We are here at your behest, and we shall assist you as you wish, but should you fail again, you would do well to remember the Order has alternative courses of action. Some of our Brethren now propose that we approach Westinghouse. He seems a reasonable businessman; he is not like Tesla."

Edison glowered, but held his tongue as he puffed on his cigar. After several long moments, he finally rasped, "All we need show is that Tesla's alternating current is dangerous. It is. If your Miss Wells is as talented as you say, that will be an easy task."

"Helena is likely _more_ talented than I have said, but convincing her shall be up to you. Despite her brilliance, she still clings to the faults of the fairer sex, and she won't do anything unless you can sway her emotions in your favor. "

"Mr. Crowley, sir," William ventured meekly, although for all his carefulness, he still felt himself turning hot under his collar when the two older men turned to him at once. "Wouldn't you say now should be a good time to introduce H.G. to the truth of the Warehouse? H.G. abhors violence, and if she knew what the Assassins have done –"

But Crowley only shook his head heavily, waving William off. "William, my boy, you are still far too young and innocent in the ways of women. Helena, as much as we dearly love her, cannot handle the truth of the Order. Women are too easily swayed by the individual; they cannot subjugate their own emotions in the face of a more universal truth."

William tried desperately to school his face into neutral acceptance, but he could not seem to help the small frown tugging at his mouth.

"We have had women in the Order before, Wolcott. Suffice to say that it never worked out very well. No, Thomas shall have to convince Helena without relying on the violence of our enemies. If alternating current is as dangerous as he says, he shouldn't have a problem, eh?" Crowley smiled and raised his glass towards Edison before finishing it off. Edison merely rolled his eyes.

William sighed and looked down at his own glass of whiskey, rattling it lightly. He hated keeping secrets from Helena, and ever since Crowley had inducted him formally into the Templar Order, he had been forced to do so daily. But Crowley refused to budge on the issue whenever William brought it up. He supposed it was probably just as well that Helena had run away from tonight's dinner. As Crowley and Edison further discussed their plan of attack, William stood and walked over to the fireplace to nurse his whiskey in morose peace.

A flash of light caught William's eye, and he blinked as he realized the painting hanging above the mantle was... _glowing_. As he reached out to poke it gently with one finger, his ears filled with a strange crackling sound, and his surroundings flickered with white light –

["The cake is a lie."

"...what the...?"

"It's all a lie, dude."

"Myka?"

"She's lying too."

"What? Who are you?"

"I'm the one that came before."

"Who –"]

 

* * *

 

Pete blinks.

"Pete? Are you okay? The connection blacked out and I wasn't getting anything from your end." Myka is leaning over him, concern written all over her features—dark eyes, trembling jaw, the flush of her cheeks.

"What—did you hear that? Was it just me?"

"Hear what, Pete?"

"There was a vo—" But Pete remembers what the voice said. It said Myka is lying, and it feels ridiculous that Pete might be listening to a disembodied voice in the Animus over Myka, whose hand comes to Pete's forehead, affectionate and gentle, but he still stops talking. "I... I don't know. Maybe it was just static in the connection or something? I was talking, but I couldn't hear you."

"Do you remember what caused the connection to break down?"

"I don't know; I think I touched something, or—sorry, Myka, I just... don't remember."

Myka looks at him, and Pete feels her gaze like a physical warmth raking over his skin. It's worried and solicitous and caring, all of the things Myka has been for him since he came here, and for a second, Pete feels like the world's biggest douchebag, but what is he supposed to think, when Myka's been keeping secrets from him and nothing he's seen in the last month makes any sense?

"Hey, it's okay. It's a computer program; they glitch sometimes. What's important is that you're okay, right?" Myka smiles at Pete, and Pete nods, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat, before he tries to smile too.

"And hey, I woke up, so you have got a _lot_ of 'splaining to do." Pete's smile is a little wobbly at first but gets stronger towards the end, and he really hopes that by the end of that explanation, he won't feel his vibes buzzing in his gut like a swarm of flies.


	3. Chapter 3

Myka doesn't understand half the things Pete says sometimes.

"So, it's not enough that I wake up as part of a weird government sci-fi time travel experiment; that weird experiment also has to be part of _Broken Sword_."

Pete is the only person Myka knows that can make her feel apologetic, confused, and annoyed at the same time. She hopes the way she wrings her hands makes her look more confused or apologetic and less like she wants to strangle Pete. Pete just looks at her, incredulous.

"You never played. What did you _do_ with your childhood? Never mind, I don't want to know the answer to that. I mean, you're not even _joking_ when you say the US government is run by _Templars_."

"'Run' is a very strong word..." Myka trails off, wincing at how Pete's eyebrows are about to meet his hairline. She really ought to have planned this conversation better—not to mention the sequencing of William Wolcott's memories. But it's difficult to navigate a Templar's memories with only a vague timeline; she never knows for sure what secrets will be revealed in seemingly everyday conversation.

"The Templars. The Knights fucking Templar, Myka! In the US government!"

"It's just a _name_ , Pete." Pete huffs like he's about to start a hissy fit, and Myka has to stave it off with both hands. "I mean, I get it. It's a little weird to think that an organization from the Crusades that used to be more or less part of the Catholic Church –"

"A secret society –"

Myka cuts Pete off with a glare.

"–is still part of the government, but that's not exactly true. What we do at the Warehouse has nothing to do with any of that. What we do is keep the world safe. That's what I know we do." Pete is glaring back, clearly unimpressed, but Myka presses on. "There are people who want to use the Pieces of Eden for personal gain, or their own crazy beliefs, or, or, just flatout destruction! Artie doesn't want that. The government doesn't want that. All we inherited is a few pieces of terminology and a name; what we're doing is the same thing you were doing for the Secret Service before you joined us."

"And you expect me to just believe all that just because you say so? You know, you, who are so trustworthy and who would never lie to me, right?"

Myka closes her eyes against the attack, but she supposes she deserves it. Pete doesn't follow up on it, though, so she has time to take a deep breath before replying quietly. "No, but I hope you'll believe me as you learn more about what we do and what we've done. Pete, I'm Secret Service too. So is Artie. I came here because... because my partner died, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The shooter had an artifact, and there was just... nothing I could do." Myka wraps her arms around herself, trying desperately not to think of Sam—Sam's smile and how it always made her feel better, Sam crumpled on a marble floor, Sam and his unseeing eyes still open—and it doesn't really work. So eventually, she just looks back at Pete, and somehow her voice doesn't break. "You're here because someone tried to kill the president, but you _did_ stop it, because Artie helped. Don't you see? It doesn't matter what we're called. It matters what we do."

Pete's arms are still crossed tightly in front of his chest, but his eyes falter, indignation visibly ebbing. Myka's heart is still thumping uncomfortably in her throat, and she has to turn away from Pete when she tries to clear it. Moments pass; then Pete's hand is on her shoulder, a silent truce, and Myka slumps a bit as she chokes back her sigh of relief.

"...I'm sorry. It's just... never a good feeling to be kept out of the loop, you know? Why didn't you just tell me up front?" Pete asks, sounding more wounded than anything else.

"Because Artie did that to me and I... pretty much flipped out. I thought it'd be... easier this way." Myka's hand flip-flops in the air aimlessly.

Pete laughs, thin and tired, and the tension pops like a wheezing balloon. "Easier, huh?"

Myka's smile is just as tired as she murmurs, "Yeah. Easier."

Pete rubs Myka's shoulder gently and then points a finger at her with his serious face. "By the way, _Broken Sword_ is on the iPhone now, so you have no excuse anymore." And Myka still doesn't really understand Pete, but that's okay.

 

* * *

 

Myka gets Pete clearance to the Warehouse library. It's meant as an olive branch, an apology, or even just a sign of her trust—carte blanche access to the entire history of the Warehouse is something even Myka didn't gain until recently—but apparently Pete doesn't read unless there are pictures. So Myka reads through the library for the both of them instead, because she wants to be able to answer his questions. But sometimes, they're the kind that don't have any answers.

"So... if all the Templars want to do is keep the world safe, what do the Assassins want?" Pete asks as he drums his fingers on the steering wheel in elaborate yet completely off rhythm.

They drive to Univille on weekends. It's nice to have someone along for the ride again. Myka never really got used to being so alone in the Warehouse; she loves Artie, but Artie likes to work by himself, and it was never as bad when they still had—but then she stops that line of thought. So anyway, Pete is a godsend, somehow.

"What do terrorists ever want?" Myka shrugs, glad that she can stare ahead at the road behind her sunglasses. She's rarely dealt directly with Assassins; Warehouse duty is much more about locating and storing artifacts. The few Assassins she's crossed paths with haven't left her any expert knowledge either. The man who killed Sam, they never got him. She knows Artie had a partner who betrayed him once, but Artie never talks about him, even when his eyes go dark at the mention of his name. Besides, she thinks, who really cares what they want? It's enough to know what they do.

Pete cocks his head as he considers her answer. "Point." He opens his mouth as if he's going to say something more, but then he doesn't. And although Myka sneaks a glance at him, careful not to give herself away by tilting her head, she knows when he starts singing along to the radio that his question is over for now.

 

* * *

 

_Chicago, 1893_

Helena had left William a note, having already left their inn early in the morning. It was just like her, running about with far more energy than William could care to muster before breakfast. Like most things about Helena, William found it at once endearing and exasperating, for he did wish she would stop going out _alone_. The world was a dangerous place, and as much as Helena would bristle at the suggestion, it was not the sort of danger Helena could simply keep at bay with her kenpo or her machines.

"...but it is all about efficiency, Miss Wells. The more you can limit the transmission loss, the farther electric power can reach!"

"If it comes at the cost of safety, I should disagree that such farther reach is beneficial."

"Ah, Mr. Edison's propaganda again, I see." But Tesla's eyes twinkled as he gestured around them. "And the fact that so far we have all been safe surrounded by my lights?"

"The temporary absence of an event is not proof that it will never occur," Helena retorted without raising her head where she pored over Tesla's schematics.

"Surely you remember that dismal experiment from several years ago, that electric chair. Poor chaps couldn't kill a man with electricity even when they were trying. Took them, what, four tries? Ten minutes? Awful business, really."

"But they could put him through excruciating pain."

William stood at the display booth's entrance, unsure where to step in. Helena had seemingly already _befriended_ the man whose demise was the entire point of the Warehouse agents' excursion across the Atlantic.

"You think so much of danger, of pain. Come now, Miss Wells, everything is dangerous. Iron is dangerous, fire is dangerous, the printing press, books, religion –"

"You sidestep the issue, sir, of whether there is a safer _version_ of electricity, not whether we shall accept it entir—Wooly! You're out and about early." When Helena finally caught sight of William, she seemed pleased, gesturing him closer with a smile, and William returned it with relief.

"Good morning, Helena. Mr. Tesla." William doffed his hat politely before pulling it off and holding it in front of his chest. Up close, Tesla was taller than he had seemed in the pictures, sharp-faced and immaculately styled. Though well into his 30s, there was a certain youthfulness about him that William found striking—and oddly familiar, although the way Tesla scrutinized him was certainly less than friendly or familiar.

"A friend of yours, Miss Wells?"

"Oh, yes, forgive me. Mr. William Wolcott, Mr. Nikola Tesla –"

While Helena explained that they were both here from London for the World's Columbian Exposition, William glanced to the schematics Helena had been studying. If he and Edison were to convince Helena to help them, it would likely revolve around concrete facts, like Helena was always going on about. He wondered if the plans were always here, perhaps unguarded at night—

_the cake is a lie_

William blinked. White letters shimmered on the surface of the paper, hard to decipher as they blended in with their background.

_srsly u never played portal dude?_

He looked up at Helena and Tesla, half a mind to ask them if they saw it too, but they were again engaged in discourse without him. And this time the letters appeared along the wall.

_im claudia btw_

["Myka? Figure we might take a break now?"]

 

* * *

 

"Tired?" Myka asks.

Pete tries to smile as he sits up, legs off the side of the chair. "Actually, it—" but then he changes his mind again and only says, "Yeah, just. You know. Long day."

Myka casts a curious glance towards Pete but doesn't pry. She never pries. He's not sure if it's just her being polite or really not knowing what's wrong, but he'll take it for now.


	4. Chapter 4

It's been two months, and besides some sporadic virtual reality graffiti and spam voice mail—all of it cryptic and extremely unhelpful—everything is falling into a routine. During the week, Myka and Pete usually work on Wolcott's memories. Other times, they go through the Warehouse's inventory. Tagging and shelving is a lot more boring than being in the Animus, but it does remind him of paperwork in D.C., which is oddly comforting. In between, he tries to find out who Claudia is, but the Animus's five-hundred-page manual doesn't have a chapter with her name, so he hasn't gotten very far yet.

Armed with a clipboard and a pen tucked behind his ear, he peers up at the shelves, but this aisle looks really empty. He looks back down to double-check and reads, "Audi... Auditore? What's that?"

"It's Audi-TOR-ay," Myka corrects him absentmindedly from the next aisle over. "It's a name."

"And?"

"And what?"

"And why are all the signs here reading 'on hold' instead of having actual artifacts?" Pete waves at the little screens, all flashing red. Pete scans through a few, top shelf to bottom—Auditore Cape, Claudia Auditore's Book, Portrait of Sofia—wait, Claudia? He doubles back and reads the description more carefully, but it's an accounting book, which doesn't really sound like his graffiti artist. Why is an accounting book an artifact anyway?

"Oh, those are... being held elsewhere." Myka's voice drifts across the shelf but sounds more hesitant this time. This sounds very much like the "Myka is not telling the whole truth" voice that Pete is starting to recognize.

"Then why did Artie give me this aisle for inventory? Why is this aisle even here if the artifacts are all somewhere else in the Warehouse?"

"Well, they're, uh—Artie just likes making sure, you know. Cross-referencing, gotta make sure the footnotes line up, supras, infras, all that stuff, right? Just check them off as on hold; that's fine."

Pete moves two steps to the left so that he can glare at Myka through the space between two boxes on Myka's side of the aisle. Myka makes no sense _at all_ sometimes. Myka doesn't look up from her clipboard and just says, "Hey, actually, you can help me over here if you're done."

 

* * *

 

So all in all, Pete's life isn't bad, really, if a bit monotonous, if it's even fair to call a life surrounded with _magical objects_ monotonous.

Just as Pete is starting to go a little stir-crazy, his days of being in the Animus, bagging and tagging, and occasionally driving out to Univille all starting to blend together, Artie descends upon them.

"There's been a ping," Pete hears H. G. Wells say in a distinctly American accent. He blinks, and then Helena's face fades away as Myka brings him out of the 19th century.

"Wazzat?" Pete mumbles, disoriented as he pulls himself out of the chair.

"A Piece of Eden. Artie found one." Myka rushes to help him, hands steady on Pete's shoulders, even as she's looking to Artie. "We're coming too?"

Artie nods, curt and staccato. "We're leaving in half an hour."

 

* * *

 

"What do you think it is?" Myka asks, twisting back to look at Artie.

"The Ankh."

"Uh, vague much?" Pete comments from the driver's seat, and he doesn't even have to look in the rearview mirror to feel Artie's glare ricocheting off it and smackdab into his forehead.

"Artie," Myka says, somehow both reproachful and coaxing. Artie sighs noisily.

"The ancient Egyptian goddess Isis is always depicted with the Ankh, or the 'key of life.' They say it had the power to heal the sick and raise the dead. After the Romans conquer Egypt, the Ankh disappears from official record. Some think it was the Ankh that raised Jesus; some think it was the Ankh that cured the Black Death; there are reports of it in Europe circa 1500, but nothing definitive." Artie looks down at his notes, fumbling with his glasses when the car hits a bump. "Until several months ago. Mining explosion in a small town in Canada, but somehow no one involved dies; then the recovery rate for cancer patients in surrounding areas goes through the roof; and yesterday's headline in the local newspapers is 'Suicide jumper survives fall from 10 story building.'" Artie doesn't talk so much as bark, short, crisp clauses punctuated by distinct pauses and the sound of shuffling sheaves of paper. "There are three Pieces of Eden identified to have healing power: one is accounted for; the other is not but it only disappeared recently, and probably not on this side of the Atlantic, so it's likely the Ankh or something as of yet unidentified. I assume the Ankh. "

"...an ancient Egyptian thingy drops off the face of the earth and ends up in _Canada_?" Pete asks after a moment of silence, and this time he feels glares from two sets of eyes instead of one. "What?"

 

* * *

 

Pete falls asleep on the plane ride, despite the fact that it only lasts little over an hour. Myka can't; she stares out the window instead, thoughts racing. The Ankh. _The Ankh_. Myka scoured the Warehouse records for months—she never stopped looking, really, after Claudia. All she learned was that all the healing artifacts were either missing or no longer at the Warehouse. It feels like some sort of sign, some bizarre show of good luck—the kind Myka hasn't even believed in since Sam—that this is happening _now_.

Claudia would like Pete, Myka thinks. Pete would like her back, too.

Artie keeps rubbing his beard the way he does when he's thinking hard, lips pursed, forehead creased deeply, and when he takes his glasses off to rub his eyes, Myka feels like his fingers should come back smudged with darkness. They don't, and Artie doesn't even notice her watching him.

Artie would like Pete, Myka thinks, if he would stop long enough to see him.

 

* * *

 

The mine has been closed since the explosion, entrance boarded over and a big sign slapped on top. Artie pulls a metal sphere out of his bag, and holds it out above his head. Pete squints at it; it's golden with strange lines running across it in irregular shapes, and then suddenly it starts glowing, light bursting out of the cracks and searing the wooden boards into ashes. Pete jumps out of instinct, but actually doesn't feel that surprised—this should freak him out, but instead it only fills him with a strange sense of belonging.

"Creepy," he says anyway, shrugging flippantly as he follows Artie's lead into the darkness. He can barely discern the silhouette of what is apparently Artie's only jacket, brown and lumpy, so he calls, "Could use that shining ball thing again, Artie."

Artie pulls out three flashlights and hands him one with his 'don't be a dumbass' look—which is pretty much how he always looks, and for some reason that makes Pete feel better too.

 

* * *

 

Between Artie's bag of endless wonder, the revelation that apparently Myka can rock-climb like a mofo, and Pete's realization that his vibes have evolved into him "seeing things"—like, say, shadowy apparitions of people in the past finding their way through an underground maze—Pete would describe retrieving the Ankh as really bizarre business as usual.

"Is it – " Myka asks breathlessly, and Artie's hands tremble ever so slightly when he picks up the muddy brown-gold chunk of metal that only, oh, might have raised Jesus. Pete isn't sure why they both seem so overwhelmed, because raising Jesus is great and all, but he's heard the whole "you can't use artifacts for your personal needs" schtick too many times to get that excited about it.

So that's weird. What happens afterwards, though, is equally bizarre, but not so usual.

Men in dark suits and dark glasses stop them at the airport. It's so cliché Pete thinks it's a joke at first. But the man that steps out from behind them makes Artie's fists turn white, and that's when the vibes hit Pete like a knee in the balls.

"Hello, Arthur. It's been a long time." The man looks eerily like Artie—the same scruffy beard, the same receding-but-still-there hairline, the same aloof distance in his eyes, but he also looks... sharper, more chilling, his smile stretched like barbed wire across his skin.

"What do you want, Vidic?"

"Arthur," the man chides, soft and oily and full of delicate reproach. "Don't make a scene." The man tilts his head to look around pointedly, and Artie's jaw clenches tightly, and that's when Pete knows that Artie already knows how this will end.

 

* * *

 

They miss their flight, and they don't talk while they sit and wait for the next one—one airport bench, three seats, but armrests that might as well be walls dividing the space between all of them. Silence settles, thick and smothering, and even Pete's curiosity can't drive him to shatter it—that is, until a shadow blocks out the fluorescent light above him.

"Hey! You're the creepy lady!" he exclaims, by which he means Mrs. Frederic, who he hasn't even seen around the Warehouse ever since she first told him to report to South Dakota anyway.

"Pete!" Myka hisses in a whisper, but Artie's head whips upward, and before Pete can say anything else, Artie hurls himself into the taller woman's space, eyes smoldering and manic.

"You told him."

"No, I did not, Agent Nielsen," the woman retorts calmly, unflinching.

"Then why was he here? Why did he have a signed warrant for my artifact? Why is it that every goddamn thing we find in the past ten years always ends up at _god fucking damn_ Abstergo?" With every word, what starts off as angry whispering spirals more and more into hysteria, until Artie is just shouting (and people around them are staring).

"Artie," Myka whispers as she reaches for Artie's arm, but he shakes her off violently.

"I can't do my job if this is all that's going to happen from now on. Squabbling with Warren Vidic is _not_ my job! That's _your_ job!" Artie stabs a finger at the lady, but the only sign that she registers Artie at all is a minute flaring of her nostrils, her features otherwise impassive and unmoved.

"Your job is to retrieve artifacts and store them as the Regents see fit."

"Well, _fuck_ the Regents! And fuck you too!"

The lady's mouth thins to a slit. "I came to tell you that the order came from above my head. There is nothing we can do." It's almost as if she's angry, but then her voice hitches for the first time when she says quietly, "And I am sorry, Artie."

Pete holds his breath while Artie's huffing and panting slows.

"Sorry isn't good enough," Artie says finally.

The PA system chimes and calls their flight number.

 

* * *

 

Artie locks himself up in his office when they get back to the Warehouse, and Myka and Pete agree without so many words that they're not in the mood for much work. So Pete asks the questions he couldn't around Artie, and Myka, even though she looks absolutely miserable, answers them faithfully.

Abstergo Industries. It's not a super familiar name as multinational corporations go, but it's recognizable even to Pete. Originally Big Pharma, now a player in most tech industries, oh, _also_ happens to be the corporate arm of the Templars. No biggie.

Pete wonders how much more being in the Warehouse is going to warp his perception of the entire world. Whoop-di-fucking-doo. The more you know.

"The Warehouse used to be a lot bigger. As an organization. Even as recently as the 60s, there were a lot more agents, more funding, more operations. But, well." Myka shrugs, and the gesture looks physically painful on her. "Abstergo gets a lot of government funding to study artifacts now. They've taken a lot of the ones that used to be here too. It's not Mrs. Frederic's fault. Artie's just... you know. He cares a lot. He gets carried away." It sounds like she's convincing herself as much as Pete.

"What is Abstergo going to do with the Ankh?"

"I don't know. They research the Pieces of Eden too. Something. I really don't know."

"If we had it, what would we do with it?"

"It's... research, probably. I don't know. Artie's just... angry about the Warehouse getting shafted."

Myka's eyes are glassy when she turns away from him, though. Pete knows, right now, that he doesn't really know anything more than he did before. He doesn't know who Mrs. Frederic is, really, or what Abstergo does, or why he's really here, or why Myka's face is so pale and drawn. But Pete also knows that he needs the hug he pulls Myka into, just as much as she does.


	5. Chapter 5

By now, Pete is sure Myka doesn't know about Claudia. Myka only sees Wolcott's memories more or less as they are through a screen and Claudia seems to have figured out how to mask her presence. Pete doesn't tell Myka, and telling himself that he doesn't feel bad about it almost works. Except Myka's been helping him understand some of the in-Animus interface so he can get in and out of memories by himself—"If you want to explore other memories, you know?" Myka had smiled—and that kind of gesture of goodwill and trust isn't really conducive to guilt-free deception.

"Guilt is overrated, man. You get over it really quickly once you're trapped in here forever." In the solid white emptiness of the Animus's loading area, Claudia's red hair and black clothes stand out so sharply Pete's eyes hurt. She twitches, head jerking around, before she murmurs, "She's not watching."

"She left; I told her I'd shut things down tonight," Pete mumbles back. It's weird to have a face to put to the name and voice and text messages scrawled across the universe.

"She's letting you out to play by yourself? Nice, you just got upgraded from lab rat to Stockholm Syndrome." The edge of Claudia's smirk is all the more disconcerting because of how it flickers and distorts randomly. Claudia isn't solid; she's a mirage, a bug in the programming.

"Who are you?"

"I already told you. Multiple times, in fact."

"No, but who _are_ you?"

"The lab rat before you, until I got stuck in here."

"How?"

Claudia shrugs. "My body's in a coma somewhere, if they haven't thrown it out yet. Betcha didn't know the Animus can fuck with your brain and do that to you."

"What?" Pete shakes his head. "But then how are you here?"

"I don't know exactly. Probably something like the Animus hijacked my consciousness from my body."

"You're... part of the program?"

"Maybe."

"That's ridiculous."

"Sufficiently advanced programming is indistinguishable from free will."

"What?"

Claudia laughs, and then she's gone. Pete really doesn't know what to make of that, except that he's pretty sure even he couldn't imagine someone this crazy into existence.

 

* * *

 

Pete doesn't know what he should think about Myka. He believes everything Myka's told him so far—it's just that he never knows what she _hasn't_ told him. Claudia might be real; Claudia might be a glitch in the system; Claudia might be a lot of things, but Claudia might also be him—what if the Animus crashes while he's inside; what if he gets trapped in there too; and why hasn't Myka said anything about that possibility at all?

And Artie, wow, how to even start with _him_. Ever since coming back from Canada, he's been even more antisocial than usual, holed up in his office, and it doesn't exactly inspire trust. If Pete ends up a vegetable, would Artie even care?

He starts making excuses to limit his time in the Animus—he's tired; he needs to stretch his legs; whoops, there goes his stomach growling again!—and Myka seems to buy it, always considerate, always so careful to respect Pete's boundaries. It doesn't help Pete in the knowing-what-to-think-about-Myka category at all. So he doesn't think too much about that, preferring to redouble his search for clues about Claudia. This time, he makes an actual effort that's not just flipping through the Animus manual. If nothing else, Pete has a newfound appreciation for the Warehouse library, so score for perpetual learning, he guesses.

But he doesn’t find anything concrete, really. There's a folder titled "Claudia Donovan – Subject 14" that he stumbles across while thumbing through Animus records, but it's empty. So is the folder for Subject 13, and 12, and ... well, if what Claudia said about being the lab rat before him is true and he's Subject 15, he's in some deep fucking shit. But then, he already knew that, he's pretty sure.

 

* * *

 

_Chicago, 1893_

Although the World's Columbian Exposition prided itself on its electric lights, advertised as "creating perpetual daytime," eventually the Fair, and even Helena, slept. William waited until darkness settled over the White City before he slipped away from the inn, making his way to the Electricity Building.

Though it was a balmy summer night, William wrapped himself in his dark coat morosely as he contemplated the past few weeks. Helena was now fast friends with Tesla, spending most of her time discussing hare-brained ideas with him. Today, during dinner, she had excitedly relayed Tesla's ideas on directed energy being used as a weapon. "Just think, Wooly, if one could use electricity to stun rather than kill! It would be so much more civilized than guns," she had exclaimed, while Crowley and Edison exchanged dark looks.

So Helena, originally intended to be their technological saboteur, had been excluded from the plan altogether. Crowley had simply shrugged and said, "Well, what did I tell you? If you can't convince her emotionally...." William still didn't agree with him, but he had no power to defy his superiors.

The Electricity Building was the darling of the World Fair and as such, not left unguarded, but William's training for the past two years equipped him well to get past its defenses. Sticking to the shadows, he scaled the large white stucco pillars and arched windows until he reached one of the high bell towers, whose open windows were large enough for him to crawl through. From there, it was a simple matter getting down the grand hall—the interior steel skeleton that lined the walls and ceiling, left exposed in the temporary building that was only meant to last the summer, was practically a ladder for a Templar of his training.

Westinghouse's booth occupied the center of the exhibit hall, but there were no guards patrolling within the building, only without, so William had only to stroll over and pull the device from his coat pocket. Edison had told him the device would cause Tesla's little exhibit to overload if used, demonstrating its danger. The aim was to instill the idea of alternating current as a potential disaster, nothing more.

Once installed, the only thing left was to wait until the day.

 

* * *

 

"You said you wanted to find something, and Wolcott knows where it is," Pete says, and his voice rises like a question. "What're we looking for exactly?"

"It's another Piece of Eden."

"Well, yeah, obviously, but what?"

Myka hesitates briefly but decides to answer truthfully. "It's known as the Shroud of Eden. A healing artifact. They say it's the shroud the disciples wrapped Jesus in before burying him."

"I thought Jesus used the Ankh." Pete wrinkles his nose in confusion.

"It's all stories and myths, Pete. We never know what's true exactly. The stories are just clues." Myka swallows and continues. "We have reason to believe H. G. Wells had the artifact before she—died. But we don't have any record of where she hid it."

"Helena was a Warehouse agent, wasn't she?" Myka nods. "So why don't you have any records?"

"...because she turned rogue."

Pete processes this for a minute. "Like, joined the Assassins." Myka nods again.

In a way, it's comforting that Pete knows almost everything. Bringing in a new agent is always a painful process—at least if Myka's experience is anything to go by—but it feels like the worst is past. Myka really thinks she's ready for any of Pete's questions now.

"Why are you and Artie looking for artifacts with healing power?"

She's not.

 

* * *

 

_Chicago, 1893_

"You see, electricity flows through everything—be it solid, liquid, or gas. Commonly, wires are used to conduct its power but it need not be so. I shall demonstrate today that it may safely flow through our bodies or even through the very air."

Helena rolled her eyes as she leaned to whisper to William, "He does like to be dramatic." William only smiled tightly in response. Tesla's little lectures were the main attraction at Westinghouse's booth, and this demonstration had been done many times before, as Helena had told William. Today, William had dragged Helena along on the pretext that he would be watching for the first time, and Helena had resigned herself to re-watching the spectacle with only minor grumbling.

"Now, some of you have been here before and you have already seen me perform this demonstration. As any good skeptic would be suspicious of a magician's performance, I have received complaints as well. Today, I wish to ask the help of a volunteer among you to prove that the laws of electricity are universal." Tesla surveyed the crowd and smiled at a young boy whose hand was waving madly in the air, despite his father's efforts to subdue him. "Ah, an eager devotee of science. Come up to the stage, young master."

The boy looked perhaps ten or twelve years of age as he clambered up the low dais, and William's stomach started to twist itself into knots as he looked nervously towards the back of the booth where the generator hummed. Edison had not told him exactly what the device would do—only that it would demonstrate the dangers of alternating current and that it would not be likely to be lethal to any of those at the exhibit. But his gut told him otherwise, and William's gut was rarely wrong.

Tesla picked a prop from the table beside him and held it up for the audience to see. "Here is a simple glass tube from which the air has been partially exhausted. My young friend here shall hold it in one hand," Tesla said as he gave the boy the prop and guided the boy's hand towards an exposed wire that lead out from the generator, "and bring his body in contact with a wire conveying alternating currents of high potential—good god!"

Helena and William both jumped up from their seats, even as Tesla ripped the boy's hand away from the wire. But once he was on his feet William felt paralyzed. Where there had been buzzing tension before, the bottom of William's gut now felt hollow and numb, and he could only watch as Helena leapt on-stage.


End file.
